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Loud previews disturb patrons, hurt exhibitors

Almost everyone has experienced excessively loud trailers before the feature. There have been concerted efforts at NATO conventions to correct this perpetual problem. Still, probably every cinema in the world continues to receive extra loud previews. The consequences include frustrated patrons finding yet another reason to give up on movie-going and theater managers time and again fielding hostile complaints. Despite posting a projectionist/staff person in the booth to adjust the sound, down for trailer & up for feature, the likelihood a picture in a multiplex will be off at the start or even during the meat of the show is unacceptably high.

We all know television commercials are generally louder than television programs. This is not as obnoxious because remote controls facilitate tweaking the sound level. Heck, my saintly elderly mom just mutes the darn ads.

A terribly loud trailer is a vicious assault on the patron and the exhibitor. Sound waves are physical. Our brains are being bruised. The marketing parasites, and the prostituted sound guys producing the preview soundtracks, are consciously, perhaps gleefully, slapping all of us with too much sound.

The studios and distributors will not respond to reason. They think they are better and smarter or just don’t care as long as their warped superficial lifestyles remain uninterrupted. They do what ever they want at the expense of consumers & exhibitors. They use their appendages in other corporate media to maintain a facade of respectability. This status quo is not sustainable.

The loud preview problem has been around for a long time. I have arrived at a heartfelt solution. We monitor the sound level of every new trailer. If the thing is sadistically loud, we splice the offending preview out of the show. The persons responsible for damaging the hearing of our customers will not change until those of us at the front line force those industry morons in L.A. & N.Y. to lose money.

Summary: I think the production of destructively loud previews will continue unabated until a significant percentage of exhibitors are in the habit of not playing trailers offensive to our customers.

Comments (66)

I’ve actually had the opposite experience: soft trailers and soft main feature. Mostly going to Grauman’s, Mann Village, El Capitan, and Arclight is probably the reason. Grauman’s and the Village use to really crank it though.

It’s my understanding that both in cinema equipment and television that the volume settings are not actually adjusted on playback.
What happens when the trailer or ad is recorded, audio compression is used to reduce the dynamic level (loud and soft range) so that all of the audio for that ad stays at the high end of the dynamic range.
When listening to the playback the loud portions of the audio are no louder than the loudest part of the movie that follows, but unlike the main feature, there are no low volume portions of the audio. I can see from a marketing point of view that this audio treatment is to get the trailer noticed.
I don’t know this is always the case and please let me know if my assumptions are incorrect.

When conditions get to the unacceptable point of presentation, don’t just sit there like a whimp… go and get a manager and SOUND OFF loud and clear for other patrons to hear and, possibly, join in with you.

Ask for a name and contact info at the theater’s H.Q. and tell them your are NOT returning because of the irritating situation. Also tell them to call/e-mail you when things are back to normal, otherwise “too-da-loo dudes!” I do this, and it works for me.

At AMC in Rockaway, they leave the volume for both the movie and the previews at high, while they leave the volume for the digital preshow at medium. Clearview does this different, with both the preshow and previews low and the feature loud. The newton theater, for example, keeps the volume of both at low since they don’t have a decent surround sound system as the larger chains do. Now with the advent of DLP and PCM sound, the volume is pretty loud than the compressed audio, but it’s much clearer to hear the audio than with Dolby/DTS/SDDS. In a THX theater it is much louder and boomier (e.g., Clifton Commons). This is the same for watching an HD movie with commercials (ex. TNT-HD). Somebody must keep the sound at low!!!

Quick comment about sound compression. It seems to be the norm on music recordings too. I might guess this is due to the ipod generation and others who carry their music around with them. Having been first raised on classical music and Broadway tunes, and then cutting my pop music teeth during the golden age of arena rock (which, commercial though it was, had lots of dynamics), I find that so much pop music sound recording just seems like a sound wall. This makes guitars, drums, and most frustratingly, vocals, hard to separate in my mind. I could go on about the horrible crop of singers too (either waifs, whiners, or yellers), but that’s another subject. Now we have a whole generation of pop music listeners who are mainly hearing compressed sound come at them as this banging, booming assault, like the Red Sea crashing-in on the Egyptians. This may account for the fact that more than a few kids are discovering old rock—particularly the Beatles. Ah, those great days when listening to albums was a pre-arranged appointment with one’s headphones and a sofa. Some of my friends added a few tokes to the recipe, but I chose not to. Seems like previews are coming from the same audio school of thought. Are the features themselves next? Probably not. So much of moviegoing today is about the sound wrapping around you. Hopefully it will remain this way.

Clarification: What I meant in the fifth sentence from the end in my previous post by “same school of thought” was the previews being from the ipod school of sound compression thinking, not the headphone and sofa tradition of listening. Apologies.

The general tone of my commentary is fueled by hundreds of bad experiences with previews. Some patrons are shocked and horrified by the booming sound of many trailers. They think the cinema is poorly managed and abusive.

The possibility of a sadistically loud preview, especially on Friday, is extremely high. Often the trailers printed with the feature have higher volumes than the feature itself. The sound guys are simply raising the recording level of the trailer per instructions. This is a completely unnecessary problem. There is no excuse for distribution/marketing types agitating an already volatile equation.

I know for a fact there are alot of thoughtful professionals in the Studio/Distributor complex. I have known many personally and professionally. Unfortunately, there is a not insignificant number of marketing types whom are hostile toward consumers as a matter of course. They will never admit it publicly, but they want you to respond to a loud preview like a deer on the highway gazing into the headlights of an 18 wheeler. The jerks want you frozen in the headlights. They want you transfixed by the plug regardless of the damage to your ears. Most folks cannot even perceive the abuse. The parasites live for your psychological and financial submission. They bank on your desensitized brain.

On the other hand, the decent guys and gals in movie marketing want to entertain and inspire and make a fair buck. Thankfully, a cool majority still have enough humanity to do their jobs without abusing the consumer. The persons who could most effectively change the loud preview problem are the ones closest to it. I am hoping my fellow cinephiles in production and distribution will answer the call for responsible and respectable marketing. I applaud our mutual love of the one and only motion picture industry.
Best, Lorenzo

The worst case scenario I’ve heard about to date is how certain theaters in the Vicksburg, Mississippi area run trailers for films that never later come to those theaters! I’ve not been to Vicksburg to find out if this is actually true, but I assume it’s correct. So talk about a double kick in the face in that instance — loud trailers for movies that will never be shown there!

Now as a solution to the loud trailer problem, I was thinking a compressor could be added to the theater’s sound system. But if I understand Jay D. Paska correctly, because the loud sounds contained in the trailer are a constant, it’s only an illusion that the sound levels for those are higher than the feature film. If that’s true than a compressor wouldn’t really work there, somebody would have to control the sound level manually, leading back to calling on Hollywood to fix the problem. Either that, or new technology being created that could automatically adjust the sound volumes the same way a human would.

“Loud” is subjective. For some it may be just right especially to getting those chatterbugs to be quiet before the movie starts. You know to whom I refer to and there’s almost at least one in every theater and at every showing. With the proliferation of pre-show ads, they can play them softly since most patrons may not pay attention to them anyway. Then when the previews start, crank it up. If the theater is state-of-the-art with DP and/or THX, let them crank it up to show off the theater’s capabilities.

Clarification: My above post was in reference to Kram Sacul and LorenzoRodriguez seemingly getting off topic. For the points you make, JodarMovieFan are excellent. Your comment was interjected right before I had a chance to post mine. But just to respond, I know exactly what you’re talking about regarding the chatterbugs who don’t know to shut up right before the feature begins. Maybe if they bring back the draft that will change…

I feel certain the use of an alias or nickname is a relevant topic for this and all other websites. Mr. Sacul’s response was good natured and appropriate for Cinema Treasures.

We should all consider the possibility using a real name lends greater substance to opinions expressed. Your real name says you stand by your perspective to the extent you are willing to be forthright about your identity. I would never trust a journalist who wrote under a pen name. I can understand a movie business insider wanting to join in on the discussion without risking his/her job, however, the use of an alias opens up this website to manipulation and subversion from many different kinds of nefarious sources. I say put your b—— on the table.

According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association sounds/noise above 80 decibels are potentially hazardous. Rock concerts are 110 to 120dB. There is evidence to support the conclusion some of you commenting on this posting have already suffered significant hearing loss. I am in the same boat. www.asha.org

I lost alot of auditory capability attending rock concerts and listening to music on extremely powerful home stereos in the 1978 through 1984 time period. This was one of the greatest eras in the history of rock. We had new albums like ACDC – Back in Black, Van Halen – Women and Children First/Fair Warning, Judas Priest – Hell Bent for Leather, Black Sabbath – Heaven and Hell, and best of all, Pink Floyd – The Wall. I can still feel the ringing in my ears from ACDC’s For Those About To Rock tour. They had cannons on stage at the Hollywood Sportatorium!

Time and again there are persons offended by the sound levels of previews. Sound interpretation is subjective to a degree, but decibel levels are easy to verify. Many trailers are too loud.

Although I go by the screen name “TheaterBuff1” at this website, I have my e-mail address posted at my CT profile page which should pretty much confirm I’m totally on the level with all the comments I post here. And I chose to go with that identity instead of my actual name because to do the other just seems so egotistical to me. Which is just how I feel on my own behalf. I’m not criticizing anyone else for doing that. And I think “TheaterBuff1” sums up very well why I’m motivated to post here. And the “1” part does not mean I love theaters anymore than anyone else does — just in case anyone wants to be quick to say “Aha!” regarding the ego thing — only that movie theaters are “1” of my biggest loves. And I wanted to choose a screen name that went hand in hand with what I wanted the biggest focus to be with regards to my comments posted here. That is, not me, but theaters.

Anyway, getting back on topic, in my younger days I spent many a night standing right next to the P.A. speakers when making the rounds of South Jersey seashore nightclubs where live rock groups performed, having my ears blasted constantly, yet today my hearing is fine. Couldn’t be better. In fact, ofttimes I wish it wasn’t. My eyesight is something else though. But being subjected to high decibels when I was younger certainly can’t be blamed for that. So in terms of loud sounds hurting certain people’s hearing, maybe there’s somthing to it, or maybe it’s just genetics. And I have no problem with loud theater sound systems so long as what’s being blasted over them is all in keeping with what I came to the theater for. For believe me, I sure as heck prefer hearing that than people mindlessly chattering all around me. Don’t you?

Lorenzo, out of curiosity, have you approached management about your issue with the trailer/movie loudness? If so, what has been their response? And how frequently do you actually go see movies in a theater?

I go to at least one movie a week, if not more, depending on what is out there, who goes with me and where and the time of the year. To be honest, I look forward to previews more so than sometimes the very movie I paid money to see. For the most part, I think trailers are themselves an art form because you have to sell your movie by condensing the final product into a minute or sometimes less depending on what stage the movie is in production.

As far as your hearing loss, I’m sorry to hear that you chose to go almost deaf by playing loud music during your youth. If the sound levels in movies are bothering you now, may I suggest ear plugs be worn so that other patrons, like myself and TheaterBuff can enjoy our loud previews, the loud but tonal varied and superb THX Sound trailer, the equally loud DLP and Qualcomm trailers and, finally, the featured movie presentation.

I am management. Mind you, I don’t say that within the context of a socio-economic status symbol. I am merely responding to a preceding post. My repeated exposure to sadistically loud trailers, via work, is what inspired my commentary in the first place.

Virtually everyone in Western Society has suffered hearing loss. Most alarm clocks ring at the hearing damage threshold of 80dB. Busy streets, truck traffic, airplanes, electric saws, and poorly recorded previews are all above 80dB.

Finally, to state what should be obvious to anyone paying attention. Reduced hearing loss would make the loud previews less offensive. Hello? Some of you seem to take pride in being desensitized. Your hearing capability was sabotaged by a lifetime of headphones/ipods/video games, etc. This is precisely why you are having difficulty grasping the loud trailer issue. Your hearing is worse than mine.

Not meaning to sound snide or anything, but I believe you meant to say “increased” hearing loss. (Either that or “reduced hearing” with the word “loss” omitted.) And believe me, if you were talking to me, my hearing is fine! It’s just that I’m put off by being subjected to sounds other than I paid money for. So far as my hearing goes, it’s so sensitive that I once moved out of an apartment solely because of the neighbors' stereo system. As for my own thoughts on trailers, if they’re really produced well I see it as a free bonus to the feature film I paid money to see, and I can’t complain about that. It’s almost like getting treated to a triple or quadruple feature for the price of one! The trailers should, though, be in the same genre as the feature film itself.

In your case, as a manager, it sounds to me like you might be in a line of work not best suitable for you, unless all your customers are complaining about the loudness of the trailers as well. In my case, in addition to my love of movie theaters I love movies themselves. So why then, did I once train for but then turn down a projectionist job? It was for that very reason. I realized that by my being subjected to films that ongoingly constantly and intensely, the love I felt could quickly turn to dread. For to be a great projectionist you have to stay on top of what’s happening on screen at all times. But not as a film connoisseur but as a technician. So maybe that’s the same sort of situation in your case, I don’t know.

I would think a rock concert with a long set would be far more damaging than a few minutes of the loudest trailers. Of course it’s a real problem for film mixers and jobs of that kind but I don’t think the audience is in any real danger unless the sound system is louder than it should be.

You are not being snide, you are nitpicking. Pointing out an extra word in an informal posting written at 2:54am EST indicates you are mostly inclined to scratch rather than engage in rational discourse. If I started proofreading postings we would never move on.

I love managing movie theaters. I think the motion picture exhibition business is the greatest industry sector on Earth. I love making sure folks get a bright image, great sound, proper masking, fresh popcorn, clean bathrooms, cold soda, hot coffee, polite well imformed employees, etc. My love of cinema and cinemas is why I am so offended by Hollywood beating up patrons with previews recorded far above sound levels for features. As noted earlier, this creates unnecessary problems. If you spent fridays in a multiplex, you would experience time and again outrageously loud trailers. Many times I have fielded complaints from a wide variety of patrons, though perhaps not surprisingly, rarely is the offended patron a teenager or 20something who has already suffered significant hearing loss. We are talking about sound levels too loud by any healthy nonmasochistic standard. We are talking about trailers, directly from Hollywood, that must be tweaked every show in order protect the audience. It’s a waste of time. The recording stage sound level of each trailer should be in the same ballpark as features.

The protracted debates about sound levels on trailers at NATO conventions proves many others have been confronted by the problem.

There is no such thing as a perfect business, but if one takes pride and loves the work, one should strive for perfection.

When I saw “Underdog” at the AMC Hoffman in Alexandria, VA, they have a wonderful and very bright DLP set up there and they played the trailer there. Its probably the brightest picture I’ve seen so far in the DC Metro area, but I have yet to experience some of the new DP installs in a few other places.

Lorenzo, if you’re the Manager of a theater, why not turn down the volume then? Then you’d have people like me complaining that its not loud enough. :) I suppose its a never ending situation. Not sure what to say. Sorry.

Where I reside — Northeast Philadelphia, PA — the only thing we have left are multiplexes, unless you want to drag yourself and your loved ones all the way downtown or out into the suburbs, which, in turn, fully cancels out the upside of the moviegoing experience. Quite a contrast to when I was growing up here and Northeast Philadelphia was home to many classic single screen theaters designed by some of the 20th century’s finest theater architects (W.H. Lee, William Groben, David Supowitz, etc.) And while several of those old theater buildings remain, the polutics [intentional typo] and accompanying business climate prohibits them from ever being brought back again as theaters, classy or otherwise. As for the multiplexes, I won’t set foot in them. A lot of it, of course, has to do with who in NE Philly has money to go to movies these days. For it’s take your pick: Either yuppies who’ve acquired all the money they have totally underhandedly, or the abjectly poor who live in constant credit card debt, neither of whom I especially want to hear the conversations of when I’m trying to enjoy trailers and a feature film. The yuppies with their annoying conversations always seek to detract when the film is saying something very important. And the abjectly poor with their conversations detract from the film when it doesn’t jive with how they’ve been brainwashed.

All this could be changed if Philadelphia’s economics could somehow be turned around. That is, a return to legitimacy. But to put it in “PhillySpeak,” Philadelphia’s current movers and shakers “don’t want that.” Not when Pennsylvania is presided over by a governor who ranks fugitive campaign fundraiser Norman Hsu among the top 10 best men he ever met. So it’s in that context that I would prefer the sound systems in theaters be especially loud. So that moviegoers can hear what needs to be heard instead of themselves speak. But maybe it’s all different where you are.

Hey theatrebuff I can tell you the archtech style of Pemberton Cinema 4. Honestly it was quite bland. By bland I mean the colors were stale and not bright. I’ve been to all sorts cinemas in Texas,Gathersburg,Maryland. I went to a multiplex there it was a ten screen one I might add. It was colorful,lighted. Even the Pecanland Mall Cinema in Monroe,La had some claas to it. Example it has its box office outside of the cineama. Everything was roomy. Now the Cinemmark stadium cinema’s which I went and when I was on the island of St. Maartin last year I went to one there and it had a lot of color about it.
Now what Pemberton Mall’s real problem has been crime. Last year several instances of crime mostly done by young blacks alone. Already CBL is getting desperate in attracting new businesses but I can tell all I see is there for lease signs and no tenants. Last year the cinema was used by some thugs to break into the mall and they robbed the electronic store of XBoxes. Now the problem with redneck Vicksburg shakers and movers they don’t want to tell the locals anything. And they often never cared about the locals and as a result they now discovered that money is leaving their coffiers like crazy and they don’t know what to do about it. U see these local shakers and movers don’t want to compete with Jackson nor Monroe. Now that the local money has bee moving out there in a panic. A panic of thier on making. They always got jealous of the Jacksno metro area. Now times have changed and their weakness is they can’t deal with it.
I did see a FOR SALE sign on the old cinema when I was at the mall last weekend. But the cinema I remember was the Joy Cinema which was torned down over twenty years ago. It had an art deco flare about it and it was a single screen cinema I suspect constructed back in the early ‘60s.

Caesar, that’s great! But the specific topic at this particular CT webpage is about what some find to be excessively loud trailers and how to reach an accord so all can feel happy. So please, let’s try to stay on topic here. Thanks!

No problem. Sorry about that.
I remember when movie optic sound used THX sound. I was at Clinton 14 and they had converted over to digital sound for their films and trailers. People were more cordial and few interrruptions with cellphones and rudeness. But the digital sound wasn’t too loud at all it was just right. And the new sound was much clearer I might add.

Not to go off topic, again, but we should clarify that THX isn’t a sound system, per se, but standards set to ensure that a theater reproduces sound heard by patrons the way the original film’s sound engineer intended them to be heard. These include things like speaker placement, air conditioning duct placement, wiring standards and so on and so forth.

a good example of the previous post is amc clifton commons, which has two screens with thx as well as stadium seating; i haven’t been to that theater since november of 2001 back when it was a general cinema since 1999.

I thought it was. Anyway what I have learned about cinema loudspeakers. They’re usually elongated and placed on opposite walls of the cinema. The speakers don’t looklike stereospeakers in your cd player. The speakers run the length of the wall.
Now in some stadium cinemas I’ve been on for example. They use box speakers and set them like steps. But both are designed to acheive the samething. Hey u recall sensurround? It was first used in the movie EarthQuake with Charleton Heston. The goal of this sound at the time to put the viewer in the middle of the earthquake. I wonder if sound tech could recreate the samething? in today’s cinema sound technology?

I’m not keen on the idea of theater speakers being part of the over all show. For to me, watching a movie should be a virtual reality experience, the next best thing to actually being there, so to speak. And while we certainly want the theater to have the best speakers and over all sound system possible, what is most critical to the viewer is the sound he or she hears, for that is ALL the viewer should be conscious of. A show of great speakers might be great for live rock concerts, but come on, not in a movie theater. I don’t want to turn my gaze away from the screen and see giant speakers to this side and that. I want to hear them. But not in the sense that I’m hearing great speakers, but rather, that I’m hearing the sounds of a great film.

Think of how it is when we’re out in the real world. Imagine you’re in the middle of a hurricane, earthquake or something. If loud sounds occur in that context, do you think, “Oh I’m going to go complain to management about that! Those sounds were just too loud! I couldn’t hear myself talk just then!”— ??? For that’s the level we want to bring movie theaters up to. That real world level. And as it is with the real world, how is a movie theater supposed to overpower you if you can get up from your seat and go order management to readjust this or that? When watching a movie you shouldn’t even be conscious of that dimension and possibility. It should be just as if you’re really there, or at least the closest the theater can bring you to it.

I was in South Florida when Hurricaine Wilma swept through the area. She was primarily a “wind event” resulting in thousands of uprooted trees and broken telephone poles. The devastation was shocking. The sound level was far below a rock concert and a jack hammer.

There is a profound difference between natural sounds our ears have adjusted to for thousands of years, and the artificially amplified sounds of the modern era.

I cannot understand why some of you suffer such excrutiating difficulty with the basic premise of this posting. I have decades of experience confronting the recorded loud preview problem. Practically every boob tube simpleton on Earth knows TV commercials are louder than the programs. Please tell me why it is so difficult to comprehend the fact Hollywood sends out trailers with the same indifference as TV networks. Your brain is a prostitute. You are a number.

I believe what you intended to say is that Hollywood is the pimp, the theaters are the prostitutes, and we the theater patrons are the johns. And clearly a better alignment would be preferable: A source where sincere and genuinely good movies are made; quality theaters where they are exhibited in the best possible way; and theater patrons who are into substance rather than cheap fast food. But how to get that in a deregulatory climate? You tell me. For I’m open to it. Or starved I should say.

When I say “prostitute” it means to devote to an unworthy cause.
The loud trailer is prostituting your mind for a desired effect, that is, going to see the movie who’s preview pummeled your brain with abnormal sound amplification so you can line up at the multiplex and plunk down your $10. for a formula picture all the while thinking you are making a choice. The same way some folks bought a certain type of bathroom tissue because they saw the goofy supermarket guy squeezing the rolls in the TV ads. Those obnoxious TV ads are notoriously effective.

Better still, lots of folks go to alternative films not because they are better, but because the patron wants to distinguish himself in our world of anonymity. You think you are too cool for Hollywood. The irony is Hollywood and Washington pyschologically sodomized your whole family tree before you were born. You are a number.

Well put, except that I do think that Charmin, which you’re referring to, is a well-produced product. In making your point for you, there are far more accurate examples I can cite. For personally, I think those commercials are funny. And quite harmlessly so.

Meantime, before you go typecasting me, I would like you to look at this link showing the interior of the movie theater I most frequented in my youth — View link

Today it’s remade over into a really really awful looking bank in an area that’s already overgloated with too many, while let me just add that during my childhood the theater you see depicted here was not a palace by any means but was just a typical neighborhood movie house. And it’s because I was brought up with such theaters that I cannot stomach the multiplexes of today. And I can remember paying as little 35 cents to see magnificent films shown at that theater. It had all been a typical part of the great America that [shhhhh] we’re not supposed to know about today. And I certainly don’t blame the people who ran that theater and others just like it for the way the world is today. And going over the long list of the many movies I saw at that theater in my growing up years, ranging from Alfred Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS, to THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, to the Beatles' HELP!, to THE AGONY & THE ECSTASY, to JASON & THE ARGONAUTS, to Walt Disney’s SLEEPING BEAUTY, to PLANET OF THE APES, to THE BLUE MAX, to TO SIR WITH LOVE, to A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, to….on and on goes the list, show me one example from that where I and my family’s tree was ever psychologically sodomized by Hollywood and Washington. For no, all that came later when such theaters as the Mayfair were forced to fold. Yes forced. Not dying a natural death. Those movie theaters of old gave our lives richness and meaning. And the movers and shakers of today don’t want that. So step in line if you will. And don’t look back.

This commentary is about marketing in relation to manipulation. We are talking about Collier and Ogilvy. I am trying to discuss the invasive nature of advertising and its effects on your brain chemistry. The preview is loud so it will dominate your consciousness. Like I said before, the deer in the headlights.

You asked for one example of your family being manipulated…The Ten Commandments.

Everything we know about biblical times indicates the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition is a mythological hodge-podge of irrational beliefs. Yet there you are paying good money to be subjugated by high production values. Rest assured, months before “Moses” parted the Red Sea at a theater near you, Charlton Heston appeared in excessively loud previews featuring a pool of Jell-o blown apart by high powered fans.

You are a number. If you are having dificulty with this, please allow me to suggest some therapy. The next time you are in a movie theater, sitting in your seat waiting for the 1 in 4 extremely loud preview, take a good look at your ticket stub. Can you see the number?

The Mayfair Theatre in Northeast Philadelphia, which that photo is of, was a much loved theater in its prime, and always attracted great audiences. Which apparently didn’t sit well with the LorenzoRodriguez types for whatever reason.

For LorenzoRodriguez, Here’s what I drew from THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, and you tell me whether or not it was a bad thing: The movie begins with a person being raised in a world of much privilege and luxury who over time becomes conscious of the many forced to toil and suffer in order for that privilege and luxury he enjoys to be. Then, discovering that he is of the same ethnicity as those forced to toil and suffer, he renounces his privilege and luxury to lead Egypt’s oppressed to freedom. And humankind takes a great leap forward as a result of it. For the Egyptians, after 3,000 long years of what had been before, at long last finally get their long awaited just due. And the Israelites finally get theirs. I find that beautiful. You find that “irrational.” Who among the two of us is actually irrational?

As for the number on the theater ticket, that’s just a tracking system having to do with estimating ticket sales and nothing personal to do with me. For when you step up to the box office to buy your ticket, they don’t ask for your name, address, social security number or whatever. And if you pay cash there’s no way they can acquire this data. Oh I know, I know, there’s scanners now, such as they have at some ATMs, that can read your retina and get all the personal info they need from that. But just because somebody has the notion to reduce me to a number doesn’t make me one, except perhaps in the eyes of those who seek to do this. And I’m glad that careful records on people are being kept, because such records will prove invaluable later when payback time comes. The Nazis, for example, kept excellent records of who was processed in their concentration camps — records which proved very valuable later in whopping lawsuits brought against postwar Germany.

Now as for the “parting of the Red Sea” scene in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS in actuality being Jello being blown apart by high-powered fans, get out! Really?! That comes as such a massive shock to me! For all these many years now I could’ve sworn that Cecil B. DeMille had got God to come down from heaven to create that special scene, and God fully complied! So you really opened my eyes with that truth revalation, LorenzoRodriguez! Thank you so kindly for letting me and everyone else at this CT page know! Meantime, now that you’ve shown me what a total fool I’ve been all these many years, you’re absolutely right about the how I need therapy bit. I’m calling my psychologist now. Wonder what number I’ll be on his patient list.

I don’t understand anyone insinuating me having difficulty with persons loving a classic old cinema. I cut my managerial teeth at the Bleecker Street Cinemas. The Bleecker is still my all time favorite venue.

It seems some of you are engaging in some misguided gamesmanship. You want other folks on this site to see you as fighting the good fight for old time motion picture exhibition. You fail to realize virtually everyone on this site already loves classic forms of film exhibition. What do you think brought us to Cinema Treasures in the first place?

I am not trying to win friends. I am attempting to generate thoughtful discourse regarding the conflict between those of us who want the reality of 21st century exhibition to improve, and those of you who merely want to drown in depression and self-pity. Yes, all those great movie palaces are worth preserving. Yes, the zooplex is some sort of commerce gone wild by necessity nightmare. And most importantly, yes, this website is full of postings from guys who cannot wait to buy the latest DVD and Video Games despite lamenting the disappearance of movie theaters they spent their whole lives taking for granted.

Regarding numbers on your ticket stub, you entirely miss the point. I am talking about a worldwide economic system, Capitalist, Socialist, and Communist, capable of reducing every single one of us to a number on a quarterly report or portfolio. Of course you do not feel like a number. That would be counterproductive. The thing that matters is this, whether you are in a single screen palace or a 20 screen nightmare, the extra loud preview must penetrate your consciousness so you will remain malleable and susceptible to all manner of unreason, including and especially, ancient mythologies your parents abused you with so effectively, years later, you happily passed on the madness to your own children.

Anyone who thinks “The Ten Commandmants” is of any historical or spiritual value is well advised to check out “The Bible Unearthed” by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman. One of their conclusions, “…the exodus did not happen”

Another Archaeologist, Neils Lemche, “Archaeological data have now definately confirmed that the empire of David and Solomon never existed.”

I do not understand how any otherwise rational person would toss reason out the window for the sake of the ignorance and insanity that is all religon. Yes, you are irrational. Moses did not receive anything from god anymore than Muhammed or Buddha or George Fox or Oral Roberts or the Pimp. Don’t kid yourself. Just because there are plenty of immpressionable folks willing to nod in agreement does not mean the rest of us must also commit psychological suicide rather than face our own mortality.

Finally, I have spent most of my adolescent and adult life working in and striving to improve the quaility of the shows at a theater near you. You can fire cheapshots as often as you like, but they are meaningless. I can tell by the details in the postings who among us, like me, has physically and emotionally dedicated this precious life to the mostly wonderful world of motion picture exhibition. Do not misinterpret an observation about viciously loud previews treating humans like cattle. The point is we should all be treated as humans.

If I understand correctly, historically there’s not a single mention anywhere in ancient Egyptian writings of someone named Moses leading the Israelites out from Egyptian oppression and bondage. And there seems to be no historic economic shifts of that sort that we come across when we study ancient Egypt’s evolution. And this regarding a culture that had writing and careful records kept.

But see, when I watched THE TEN COMMANDMENTS as a child at the Mayfair Theatre, I didn’t view it in the sense that an historic account was being exhibited. Rather, I simply saw what I felt was a great movie with a great underlying storyline, in and of itself. In that context whether it was historically accurate or not was irrelevant. For even though I was a child, I knew when I saw what looked like Roman soldiers that it was far from being historically accurate. But I was also able to see beyond that. To not let such historic flaws get in the way of what ultimately was being said. And whether what was depicted in that film actually ever happened or not proves nothing in my opinion, while you seem to think it’s evidence that there is no God. That’s like saying because Betsy Ross was a myth or George Washington never chopped down the cherry tree there is no United States.

Being as I grew up here in Philadelphia, and visiting the historic Betsy Ross house at Arch Street and Second was a frequent destination of school trips, not to mention how we regularly sang in the school auditorium a song retelling the Betsy Ross legend as if it was actual fact, what do you think my reaction was later in life as an adult when I found out the Betsy Ross tale never really happened? Do you think I felt my whole world suddenly turned upside down? For no. My straightforward reaction was, what did it really matter? I still believed in the principles of the United States. But that’s just speaking for me. Others I can’t speak for.

And the same goes with religious accounts. Was there really a Noah with his ark? A Gsrden of Eden? Did Jesus really feed the 5,000 with two fish and loaves of bread? I don’t know, and I don’t bet on it either way. For that’s all in the past. But you seem to think if those things can be disproven it disproves all else. It disproves whatever we believe in and of the here and now. I can attest to the past that I bore witness to. But that’s as far as I care to go. That I authoratively have a right to. And for the most part I’m a futurist. And when I look at certain things in the past I ask, “Well, it worked then, why can’t it work now?” When I do that I’m thinking future, not past.

And just because it can be “proven” that Moses never led the Israelites out from Egyptian bondage, does that mean that doing that sort of thing is a bad idea? No. That’s not proof that it is. That’s no proof at all. It’s just garbage talk. That’s how I look at it.

LorenzoRodriguez, you wrote: “I can tell by the details in the postings who among us, like me, has physically and emotionally dedicated this precious life to the mostly wonderful world of motion picture exhibition.”

In offering up my rebuttal to that, and not disputing your statement, let me just say that you obviously: 1) never did this in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 2) went nowhere fast if you tried to; or 3) you’re much older than I realized and did it back when it was still possible to. (That is, back in the days when many people still believed in God. Actual God, that is, not one of man’s own making.) Consider yourself to have been very very lucky to have been in a place that enabled you to achieve what you did, and that still allows you to. And do not take it for granted.

For from my Philadelphia-based perspective, well-run theaters — except that they have what you consider to be excessively loud trailers — are better than no theaters at all. And by well-run theaters I mean those such as Philadelphia once had in abundance but that had been forced to shut down via intimidation, extortion, vandalism, racketeering, political pressures from bogus religions, the bad elements forcing out the good and so on.

Meaningless cheap shot posts don’t go no where with me. I see no point in them.
As for sound I have this interesting. U know at the Clinton 14 which I now frequent the sound was not loud on their movie trailers at all. One of my friends hopes this town new cinema if it ever gets a new one he told me he would love to see a digital cinema. He told how wonderful the experince was. As for DTS sound it’s so clear and hardly no static.

I agree with you, ceasar. DTS has the advantage of having the highest bitrate of any compressed audio system and it can read off CDs, not film, which is good. As for trailers and DTS, for the teaser trailer for the Jurassic Park sequel, several speakers emitted flashes of light to make the lightning more surreal. DTS and Dolby Digital are the two main sound formats used for trailers, and SDDS is slowly getting out of the theaters as it’s too complicated. As for which sound system delivers the loudest trailers, DTS is #1, followed by Dolby Digital, and SDDS, which delivers an aural experience that most home theater systems can’t match.

There are many different surround sound configurations. Most have side wall speakers. A few have at least one rear wall speaker such as 3.0 if I remember correctly. Note: I think most rear wall speakers actually are side wall speakers at the rear of the auditorium. The back wall often gets pounded by sound from the behind the screen front speakers.

Regarding DTS vs. Dolby Digital vs. SDDS. This is a fascinating and pivitol set of circumstances. SDDS is out of production but still widely available. SDDS is fading.

DTS and Dolby both have advantages. DTS does not suffer wear and tear like the between the perforations Dolby, however, Dolby is on the print. I know good folks in each camp.

There is no theatrical sound system so great that it can make up for the movie being exhibited being less than gripping. And to be sure, the movie that’s being exhibited is clearly failing if anyone in the audience while watching is wondering what the theater’s sound system is. At this late stage in theatrical sound technology evolution we should be to the point that whatever sound system is being used is a moot issue since all that’s currently available and being applied is great. While let it be noted the greatest theatrical sound system in the world cannot make up for the movie being exhibited being lousy. And “lousy” is not as subjective a term as it sounds (no pun intended). Case in point, I hear you talking about the state of movie theaters around Vicksburg, Mississippi these days, Caesar, but my not having been through that way for some time, I wonder what the state of farmland is around there of late while this other is going on. Is all that being rapidly phased out while no one is noticing, the all new multiplex theaters you describe, and other new ones going up, being used as a distraction from all that as it were? I.e., is it now to the point that if a movie exhibited there seeks to put across what people in that area of the country — as well as elsewhere — need to attune to once again, the audience reaction is that the film in question is “lousy”

For such is a huge problem in rural (or what not very long ago was rural) Pennsylvania right now. And I mean huuuuge. The movie theaters in Pennsylvania’s major cities — such as here in Philadelphia — range from poorly run and backwards to nonexistent, while reports coming from Pennsylvania’s previously rural areas are just the opposite. And there’s most clearly something majorly wrong with that, while I’m wondering if that’s the case in Mississippi as well. And it sounds to be, going by what you’ve been saying. And though this might all seem off topic relative to this particular CT page, that’s the way awareness increase often is. The Lord works in mysterious ways as they say.

You’re right about the farmland being phased out. Even some farmers here going to grow corn in the Delta for biofuels.
Now in Cental Mississippi like in the Jackson Metro area,the captital doesn’t have cinema anymore. Now with the satellite communiiteis around Jackson they’re growing. Madison made the top ten living list and already it has two cineams. The Northpark 14,a box cinema from Northpark Mall,and the Malco 17. Northpark 14 has been having crime issues as well as Cinema 14 Clinton. But if I was the rank the best it would be Tinseltown in Pearl,a stadium cinema.
Now as for Vicksburg’s cinema demise,the Regel Entertaintment Group built that cinema originally. Now when box cinemas returned why didn’t they build one here? I asked that question on thier feedback too. I figure it got sold to Village Entertainment becouse of weak profit margins. Now Regel nor Village didn’t do a marketing study on how to improve cinema at all. They both remained the same in catering to the same audience—blacks and teenagers. Under Village Entertainment the cinema quickly detoratied. And thanks to a few people here they told how lousy of a tenant which Village Entertainment was. Under both Regel and Village I suspect the cinema was losing money becouse the teens were and are going to Jackson Metro area for better films. Listen even some Disney famliy films didn’t open at all. I can tell lousy is subjective but I believe this port got second and third rate films. And when a film was released in Jackson say January it didn’t come to Vicksburg until 6 months later. Case example: Oh Brother Where Art Thou? opens in Jaunary of 2001; opens in May or June of 2001. But most of the films were tailored to the black populace not to the whites.
When I was listening to the local talk radio show this morning. A not so bright banker made the point of his friends illegal downloading films off the internet as cutting into the cinema as well as ticket cost. But he missed that pointed becouse some legel sites to download films are on the way.

Persons who love movie theaters discuss sound systems, as well as film gauges, aspect ratios, and sight lines, in the same manner the fine art crowd talks about different mediums and materials. Our discourse is inspired by love of an entire system. It has nothing to do with an individual’s personal problems, and that reminds me of an infamous quote from W.C.Fields, “Better dead than Philly.”

Actually, the W.C. Fields quote you’re referring to is, “All things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.” It was supposed to have been engraved on his tombstone, but apparently never was. Meantime. just to be factual about it, Fields wasn’t actually from Philadelphia but was from Upper Darby, a Philadelphia suburb, and home to the Tower Theater, known the world over for its excellent acoustics — the latter being something you should pay closer attention to, as certainly the great theater designers of the past did. And as for the fine arts crowd, which I’m partially a part of, you’re quite mistaken. We don’t talk about those things you mention at all. Only the talentless amateurs do that. Our whole focus is on message, and expressing ourselves with whatever works and with whatever we happen to have on hand at any given moment.

Now Caesar, as for illegal Internet downloading undercutting cinema profitability, that’s just a huge cop out on some in Hollywood’s part. For you can’t download from the Internet the great experience of seeing a great film exhibited in a great theater. No matter how you try to cut it. What perhaps you can download, though, is a lousy movie that wouldn’t be improved any by seeing it in a really poorly run multiplex. I certainly won’t argue with Hollywood there. As for the farm situation you describe down that way, that greatly worries me. For it sounds to me that cinemas down that way and exciting new ones rising up are being used as a major distraction to undercut that area of the country’s farming industry even further, just as is going on right now here in Pennsylvania. Farming is the highest profession, because it is the most essential — not a one of us could exist without it — but you’d never know that, given how in so many places it’s getting cast aside right now as if belonging to the past. These days when you travel up north and west out through Pennsylvania it is really awful to see all the intense development where beautiful farmland used to be. There are some suburbs of Philadelphia now where they’re much more city-like than many parts of this city are. It’s both crazy and really sad. It’s like opening the door to your cellar, getting whoooosh! — hit in the face with flames of a blazing fire down there — quickly slamming the door again, and saying to yourself, “Uh, I didn’t just see that, please somebody tell me I didn’t just see that!” I would say from this that sound levels in our theaters being too loud when the trailers are being shown is the least of our worries.

I’ve been keeping up with th illegal downloads. Honestly I’d rather experincea film in a cinema than on a pc or home theater to be honest with u. And sound makes a big difference. One time the project broke in the cinema and with the film I saw the optic line on th left side of the film.

That can’t happen with digital cinema, while what you describe sounds a bit like that classic scene in THE WIZARD OF OZ where the booming voice of Oz says, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

Which ties very heavily with what LorenzoRodriguez was saying; “I am talking about a worldwide economic system, Capitalist, Socialist, and Communist, capable of reducing every single one of us to a number on a quarterly report or portfolio.”

See, down there in Mississippi, Caesar, they want you focused on the cinemas down that way — just as is the ongoing case in rural Pennslvania — while not paying attention to the disappearing farmland all around you. The cinemas will tell you [with the sound volume cranked up to an ear-shattering level], “WE’RE what’s important! Keep your focus on US!”

Am I on the right track with that thinking, LorenzoRodriguez? Or am I not?

The fine art crowd only cares about message? Really? I wonder what Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock would say about that? Or better still, Marshall McLuhan, as in the “The medium is the message.” Professor McLuhan long ago came to the heartfelt conclusion, content, i.e. message, was overrated, and the medium, motion pictures, books, television, was far more influential because of context. Granted, this is still a controversial perspective, but the proof is everywhere.

Airplanes and trains are both modes of transportation, with an identical message, but would any reasonable person call them one and the same? Content/Message: You are traveling. Context: Sky versus Ground, Hours versus Days, Pressed for Time versus Time to Spare.

Anyone who believes great art and great cinema are only about message is terribly naive. Arguably, the greatest artists of all time were first and foremost fascinated by technique and apparatus, whether it’s oil on canvas or ceramic or 16mm or digital video. The medium subjugates the message. Star Wars is a masterpiece despite its simplistic story and average acting. Star Wars is a masterpiece because George Lucas elevated the medium.

I thought “psuedointellectual” was a term that applied only to those who ignore the facts and delve in sophistry. And not to be distracted by your calling me one, I still think that.

As for what you say about artists and medium, yes, we do think of the medium up to the point of, “Should I communicate this idea with oil on canvas, egg tempera or casein on wood gessoed panel, with watercolor on coarse paper, with charcoal on newsprint, or what have you.” But we don’t get hung up on, “Is this paint Windsor-Newton or Grumbacher? Is this brush sable, hogshair or nylon?” and all that other crap. We want to know if the materials we use are durable, but that’s as deep as it goes. Maybe an ad we see in American Artist Magazine or whatever will convince us to go with Shiva, but if the local art supply store doesn’t carry it it becomes a case of, “Ah, whatever.” The only exception is when artists grind their own colors, but very few do that anymore. When we buy paints we do, of course, make distinctions between ultramarine, cobalt and pthalocyinide blue, between cadmium red and vermillion, when we go to paint we choose between a flat or round brush, and should the canvas be coarse or fine, that sort of thing. But it’s only those beneath us who want to nitpick any specifics beyond all that. For me personally, though, and I wish I could say it’s true of all artists but it’s probably not, I AM sensitive to such things as is the natural environment being hurt in any way by those who produce the materials I work with? Are animals getting exploited needlessly? Is slave labor involved somewhere along the line? Unfortunately, given the irresponsibleness of current trade and manufacturing processes, those things do have to be considered.

Meantime, did I actually hear you say that STAR WARS is a “masterpiece”??? This from the same man who several entries back lashed out at me for singing praises of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS?! Are we talking about the same STAR WARS here? The one with the primary message, “Let the force be with you”? For “Let the force be with you”? What the heck kind of “good message” is that to brainwash movie audiences with?! Isn’t that essentially the same philosophy that Shakespeare’s Macbeth went with? Wasn’t “Let the force be with you” what the blind and stupid followers of Hitler all got lockstep behind? That was an awful message. And it went hand-in-hand with an awful movie, whether we’re talking STAR WARS or TRIUMPH OF THE WILL — except TRIUMPH OF THE WILL was a case where its filmmaker, Leni Reifenstahl, actuslly DID elevate the medium, if you want to focus strictly on that.

I visted the DTS sound website. It’s an interesting website. U can shop for thier products on that samesite too. They also service sound for your home theatre. The coporate site is real interesting to explore becouse it talks about cinema sound. And DTS is a publicly trade corporation too. Just thought I enlighten; I found the site real interesting too. Just enter DTS in the seach engine and it’ll pop up.

A pseudointellectual is a person who resembles an academically minded person, but is prone to superficial debates and selfish modes of argumentation. Sigmund Freud and Ayn Rand are excellent examples of pseudointellectuals.

Sigmund Freud is the most destructive quack in the history of medicine.

Star Wars is a masterpiece of American commercial cinema. Star Wars is one of the greatest comfort films of all time. The apolitical story of good versus evil is something we all related to, especially at a time when Hollywood seemed to have lost the ability to tell the difference.

The Ten Commandments is in the same category as Star Wars as far as commercial cinema is concerned, but there are profound differences in subtext.

Star Wars does not subjugate the general public into subscribing to an irrational belief system. You know it’s just a movie. Star Wars entertains and inspires in a genuinely egalitarian manner.

The Ten Commandments condemns the unsuspecting Judeo-Christian-Islamic mind control victim to continue bowing their heads to irrational belief systems so they can be further exploited by the same parasites who also produce loud previews, loud TV commercials, and subliminal messages in advertisements.

Granted, Star Wars, like all major commercial cinema, contains some exploitative elements. These are part and parcel of large scale distribution/dissemination. One of the most important things to remember is the timing. Post-Vietnam and Post-Watergate, Star Wars was global therapy. George Lucas is far more perceptive than Sigmund Freud could ever dream.

Sigmund Freud was a pioneer in psychoanalysis. So naturally he made all sorts of mistakes given that. But underlying it all I don’t see any evidence to suggest he was insincere. So that, in my judgement, takes him out of the category of psuedointellectual. If you want to see a perfect example of a pseudointellectual, check out the documentary, LENNON (2000). In that movie there’s a particular scene where Lennon’s interviewed by a snotty woman who’s as psuedointellectual as they come. Other perfect examples include William F. Buckley — a true classic! — and most recently, Ann Coulter.

Now regarding STAR WARS, as for the timing of it, yes, it was post-Vietnam and post-Watergate as you say. But for more relevant, I feel, it was post- two key assassinations, that of Bobby Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. With those two great leaders having been downed, by the mud-70s it totally redefined what space exploration was to be about and set the stage for Reagan to come in 1980. There’s a scene in STAR WARS where a planet, eerily similar to earth, gets completely destroyed — as if by some “amazing force of great intelligence.” This is the kind of thing that STAR WARS put across. And American moviegoers, without wise leadership to guide them, gullibly fell for it as though it was a “great movie.” Can I suggest Marc Antony’s Funeral Oration might’ve come in handy at that moment?

Now as for TEN COMMANDMENTS. Subjugating the general public into subscribing to an irrational belief system, you say? For I seriously beg to differ! For there’s not one miracle in that movie that cannot be explained in secular terms. Do you know it’s possible to stun and hypnotize snakes so they can become as stiff as wooden staffs? And that this trance can be broken by tossing the hypnotized snake down onto a hard surface? And are you aware that water can appear to be turned to blood the same way Chicago turns that river it has green each year on St. Patty’s Day? And the Red Sea is well known to undergo massive tidal shifts several times a day. There are times in the day when the tide goes down so thoroughly that you can actually walk across it where the bottom becomes exposed. But when the tide reshifts the water overflows these exposed areas tsunami-like.

The movie THE TEN COMMANDMENTS no doubt stylizes these “miracles” it depicts, to make it look as if a super-deity is behind them all. But what movie doesn’t exaggerate that way for better effect? Meantime, historically we do know that the Jews of today descend from a people who were held in bondage as slaves in ancient Egypt. Yet they overcame this bondage and fled somehow. And your explanation for that is….? As for there being no records of this Jewish exodus in ancient Egyptian writings, which I myself pointed out several entries back, could that not be similar to how many in the South to this day insist that the Civil War was purely one of Northern aggression and that ending slavery all throughout the U.S. had nothing to do with it? And don’t forget, relating to events more recent, there’s Holocaust denyers. Your city just hosted one.

It’s true that the previews have become a way of movie life, so to speak. They can be boring, but they’re often used to lure people to the movies. One advantage to the previews,, however, is that if you end up being afew minutes late to a film, the chances are just as good as not, possibly better, that you’ll end up missing some of the previews rather than the feature film itself.

Quite frankly, I think that the quality of many, if not most movies that’re coming out nowadays, are a rather vicious assault on the whole human psyche, with the overly graphic pictures, constant exploding on the screen, and, often, unnecessary amounts of blood, guts and gore. Most movies coming out nowadays are also long on style(?) and woefully short on substance. Cheapening and coarsening. The sign of the times.

It’s also true that, compared to loud rock concerts, the previews of other movies are far less damaging and assaultive to the human brains.